Grass Valley Shows Automation Advances

Some 100 TV stations and broadcast facilities around the world have adopted Grass Valley's Ignite news production automation system so that they can produce a live newscast with no more than one person in the control room.

Others would like to enjoy the efficiencies of news production automation, including robotic studios, but are not quite ready to let go of their expensive production switchers.

With those stations in mind, Grass Valley has introduced Ignite Konnect, an automation upgrade for the company’s Kalypso and Kayenne switchers.

Ignite Konnect allows stations to "step up to automation without throwing out their old gear," said Scott Murray, general manager, live production solutions, at a press conference during the NAB convention in April.

By using Ignite Konnect, stations not only get the comfort of knowing they can fall back on manual production, Murray said, but they can also maintain the "on-air look" developed with the switchers.

Murray estimated that there are about 300 TV stations in the U.S. now using Kalypso switchers.

Among the buyers of the full-blown Ignite system is Media General, the owner of 18 stations in 17 markets.

At the press conference, Grass Valley Senior Vice President Jeff Rosica said that Media General is installing Ignite at three more stations, bringing its total Ignite stations to 13.

The latest additions: WKRG Mobile (CBS), WSAV (NBC) Savannah, Ga.; and WJHL Johnson City, Tenn. (CBS). All three are also being outfitted with robotic cameras to take full advantage of Ignite's capabilities.

New hardware for all Grass Valley Ignite systems includes an application server running the MS Server 2008 operating system, an HD network switch; a firewall appliance for increased system security and a media object portal that serves as a MOS gateway and is used to extract production data from newsroom computer systems.

Keeping with its theme of upgrade rather than replace, Grass Valley also introduced MediaFuse FX, a system for taking news stories, video clips and other content produced for broadcast and prepping them for distribution over Web and mobile platforms.

MediaFuse FX is an extension of MediaFuse, an add-on to the Ignite system, and designed to work with all news production systems. It comprises a server and FuseApprove software.

Among other things, MediaFuse FX can transcode content to more than 40 formats, including Flash, Windows Media, H.264 (iPhone) and 3GP. Multiple formats can be created for each piece of content.

"MediaFuse FX does not just manage video content, but also text, still imagery and a full range of metadata that creates content that is the most useful, and most easily monetized for alternative distribution," said Scott Matics, product manager for MediaFuse, in a prepared statement.

Grass Valley also pitched its ViBE EM3000 HD encoder with Mustang compression engine as a tool for broadcasters seeking to multicast two HD programming services in a single broadcast channel.

Ray Baldock, Grass Valley's chief technical officer, said the encoder could handle two 1080i signals in a single channel.

However, he said, the first application of the encoder for HD multicasting is WGXA Macon, Ga., which as a dual ABC and Fox affiliate, is using it to air two bandwidth-efficient 720p signals.

 

This story was originally published on TVNewsCheck.com